Effective listening skills are often neglected in health contexts, especially when delivering or receiving health risk messages. This study examined the effect of receiver apprehension and tailored health risk messages to listening style profile preferences on the health risk perception of adult child caregiver participants. In this experimental study, adult child caregivers ( n=148) were administered the Receiver Apprehension Test (RAT) and the Listening Style Profile (LSP-16) and were then randomized to receive a standard (non-tailored) health risk message or a message tailored to the adult child caregiver's preferred listening style preference. After viewing the health risk message of adult-to-child pertussis transmission, which included the need for an adult pertussis vaccination to protect against transmission, the caregivers then indicated their risk perception on the Risk Behavior Diagnosis (RBD) scale. The results of the study offered partial support of tailored health risk messages to preferred listening styles predicting health risk perception. Both the tailored and non-tailored caregiver group indicated danger control responses, or action against the threat of adult-to-child pertussis transmission, and message acceptance after receiving the health risk message. This finding indicated that tailoring to a caregiver's preferred listening style may increase an adult child caregiver's health risk perception and the likelihood to obtain the adult pertussis vaccination. When the adult child caregivers were randomized into the control (non-tailored) or experimental (tailored) groups by listening style preferences, neither group predicted risk perception. Receiver apprehension did not individually predict risk perception; however, the linear interaction of receiver apprehension and the health risk message type (tailored or non-tailored) to a adult child caregiver's preferred listening style did predict risk perception indicating danger control processes and suggesting an increased likelihood of obtaining an adult vaccination.